4 Tak Shing Street Interior - 1950

Sun, 01/29/2017 - 14:07

#4 Tak Shing Street, left-side building in compound of 3 buildings. 

An interesting look at a period interior. Elsewhere on this site, it is noted that the building was built in 1929. It's believed that the windows/doors shown opened on to a balcony.

The occasion is a party for May Huang (黃思勤), aged 16, later known as Roni, in 1950. May is seated in the center of the second row. In the front row, her brother Paul is third from left, and sister Helen fourth from right. They were the children of Han Liang Huang and Zing Wei Tang; and grew up partly in Shanghai and partly in Hong Kong before emigrating to the US in the early 1950s. Their father was a banker (mainly Shanghai, but also Hong Kong and the Philippines) and very briefly Minister of Finance (January 1932, government of Sun Fo).

Future film star Peter Chen Ho (陳厚 Chen Hou), who would appear in over fifty movies in the ’50s and ’60s, is in the back row, fourth from the right. Swimmer Cheung Kin Man, who would compete in the 1952, 1956 and 1960 Olympics, is in the second row from the back, second from the right, in a striped tie. 

May was the family's social butterfly, but it's still a bit of a family puzzle as to why such a crowd assembled, presumably to celebrate her birthday which took place in the month of May.

Date picture taken
21 May 1950
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